Saturday, November 27, 2010

Chuckanut and an aside on glassware

   Of our two breweries here in Bellingham, I think I stop in at Chuckanut more often.  They rotate their eight or nine brews in and out of their six taps and can always offer some nice choices. In clement weather, their outside tables are right by Whatcom Creek as it flows into Bellingham Bay.  Several nights a week they follow a routine, and Tuesdays is Kolsch night. Kolsch is a beer that originated in Cologne and is traditionally served there in these skinny little glasses. You can get one of these wee tastes for $1.50 every Tuesday at Chuckanut.  Here is Rachel, serving up a Kolsch glass.
  I had thought this glass was traditionally used only for Kolsch and went and googled the subject of beer glassware.  Beer Advocate has this great article out, that tells you everything on the subject.  It seems there are nine recognized styles of glassware for serving up our favorite beverage. The flute, the goblet, the mug, the pilsner stein, the tumbler, the snifter, the stange, the tulip, and the Weizen glass. The stange (German for stick) is what the Kolsch comes in. According to Beer Advocate, it is also proper to use a stange for a bock, a lambic, a Czech pilsner, and several other beers as well as Kolsch.  I kind of wondered about the pilsner, as that is the only beer that has its name on a type of glass, the tapered stein. BA says one may serve Czech or German pilsners and about twenty other beers in this glass.
   You can learn something new every day.
    Once a month or so, Chuckanut offers a tour of the brewing works, across a driveway from the pub area.  Brewmaster Kevin led the tour on a Sunday afternoon in January, enlightening about a dozen people with facts and factoids about the process.  He pointed out that the lauter tun they use right after the mash tun is a necessary component for German brewing processes (not necessarily for English styles).  Chuckanut goes through a rotation of eight beer styles throughout the year, with six being on tap in the pub at any time and the other two being listed as "in production."  The six fermenters are very visible from Holly Street, B'ham's main drag as it runs from downtown through the Old Town harbor area.

(Visited numerous times, photos 11/23/10 and 1/09/11))

No comments:

Post a Comment